A Tribute to L’Wren Scott

The devastating news of the death of L’Wren Scott has sent waves of shock and compassion through the worlds of fashion in New York and London. The loss of such a figure of grace, fun, and multidimensional talents seems incomprehensible. Always poised, always publicly reticent and privately considerate of her clients and friends, L’Wren was a self-made designer who was proud of building an independent business, which she kept scrupulously separate from her status as the girlfriend of Sir Mick Jagger.

“I am doing this with my own money,” she said, on launching her own collection in 2006. “My life’s always been like that. It’s how I was raised.” Those who attended her fashion shows in New York, and more lately, London, will be remembering L’Wren’s unique style, and the personal hospitality she always offered. Each season, she would serve lunch, seating her guests while her models walked. All of them looked as if they could sail into the best cocktail parties, magnetize red-carpet cameras, and be the most self-composed center of attention at any late-night rock-’n’-roll fixture—just as L’Wren did herself.

As a designer who had begun by working behind the scenes as a stylist in Hollywood in the nineties, she was nervous about taking her first steps with her eponymous collection. To her, the place of a designer was not in the limelight, but behind the scenes at the service of the people she dressed—Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Ellen Barkin, and Sarah Jessica Parker among them. Her relationship with Mick Jagger, which started in 2002, made her even more guarded when talking to the press. “Throughout my career, I have made it a rule never to talk about my clients or promote myself on the back of anyone else,” she insisted. “I always think of Edith Head. She was dressing all those women every minute of the day, in film and in life. She worked with Givenchy and other designers on film costumes. But did she ever give interviews about them? Never. I take that approach. My place is ten steps behind.”

In fashion, L’Wren proved herself by sticking to the principles of high-wattage but classy American glamour she had learned since childhood. Her silver-screen tastes were formed, she remembered, by “going to the dollar-movies! I watched old films where women really looked like women.” The movies were some of the only entertainment available to a girl growing up in Roy, Utah, a small town an hour’s drive from Salt Lake City.

Born Laura “Luann” Bambrough in 1964, she was adopted by a Mormon family and was devoted to her mother, whom she credited with encouraging her interest in making clothes. By the age of thirteen, she was already six feet tall, unable to find ready-made clothes. “My mom encouraged me to make the most of my height. I remember her taking me to the shoe shop when I was fourteen and saying, ‘Of course you must try high heels.’ ” She soon became an expert seamstress, developing the exacting skills in fitting flattering clothes that would become her trademark. “I would go to the store, buy Butterick Patterns, and make my own clothes, sometimes from fabrics I’d cut up from clothes from vintage stores. And I do know about men’s tailoring—doing that masculine/feminine thing.”

Her outstanding appearance, her style, and 42-inch legs soon brought her to modeling. Spotted by Bruce Weber, she took her chances and booked a one-way ticket to Paris, where her looks were ideal for modeling in the glamazonian heyday of Thierry Mugler. But, she said, “I was never good at being objectified. What I loved much more were fittings, watching and learning about how things were made.” She became a stylist for Herb Ritts in L.A., and from there progressed to advising movie stars in need of confidence-boosting, fail-safe clothes that looked impeccable from every possible angle in the camera’s lens.

All this long-studied exactitude, her perfectionism, and intimate understanding of women’s insecurities about performing in public (she knew everything about creating proportional illusion, covering arms, lengthening legs, and anchoring underwear) allowed L’Wren Scott to rise to a position where her accomplishments were greatly respected, and her shows highly anticipated. Her loss is a tragedy to all who knew her professionally; it is surely incalculable to those within the close circle of family and friends she held so dear.